Stephen and Sharpies ~ Watty Awards 2012

Part Two: Chapter Two

    After a horrible first night in the hospital, I am woken up at eight. The nurse from yesterday is standing over me with a try full of food. She smiles and sets the tray down on the bedside table.

    “Eat up, I’ll be giving you the tour of the place once your breakfast is over.” She turns away, not waiting for some sort of response from me.

    Amber scoffs down her food like she did last night. She doesn’t pause to take a breath until all her food is gone. Then she stands and walks out of the room. I slowly pick at my food. There is some brown mush that after one taste, I can tell is a failed attempt at blueberry oatmeal. The small bowl of fruit looks edible. Hesitantly I try the it and find that it is fresh fruit, not even frozen. I take a sip of the orange juice and frown, too much pulp. With the last piece of fruit, the nurse shows up.

    She shakes her head once she sees my tray, still almost full. “You really should eat more.”

    “Doesn’t taste good.”

    “Yeah, that’s what they all say the first time.” She picks up the tray and motions for me to follow her.

    We walk out into the hallway, the first step of the tour.

***

    I manage to get close to an hour of sleep, maybe it was only a few minutes. I am already losing track of the time here and I have been here for exactly a week. That’s seven days, 168 hours, 10,080 minutes, or 600,480 seconds. I did this all on a single piece of paper. Time moves slow and everyday is the same routine. I get up in the morning, dress in my white patient clothes, wait for breakfast, eat my serving of mushy stuff that they call food, go to my counselor for an hour, go to my support group for half an hour, eat what I guess is my lunch, go to another group session, and then I have free time until dinner, following dinner is sleep. I get little of it, but it is the only time that his face isn’t watching me from outside a window. The room is dark and my closed eyelids only bring images of a boy, the only safe person I have.

    His eyes follow me while I run, he sees me and watches me with eyes of wanting. Alec talks to me like I am a real person, not the psycho everyone else sees. The way he took care of my sister when my life was falling apart. He walked with me and listened to me in a way nobody else did. I have no idea how I ever made it through the years before Alec. I don’t know what there is left for me to live for except for the thought of being able to go back to him one day. Being able to go back to Alec and my sister and even my wretched mother. His watches me and in my eyes all I see is him.

    I’m watching him in return.

    “Stephen, wake up.” I hear a sweet voice. I recognize it as the nurse who took away my phone.

    “Yes, um I don’t know your name.” I say with a slow laugh.

    “It’s Annie, but around others call me Nurse Colton. I just wanted to first say I am sorry, secondly they look through all the letters. Any that don’t seem fit for the patient get saved until they’re released.”

    “Okay? Can I ask what this has to do with me?” I give her a strange look and then it hits me, Alec’s letters.

    Annie nods her head and hands me three letters. One for everyday since my phone was taken away. “I checked them just in case and once I read them I knew taking your phone away was a mistake. I already logged it in so I can't fix that, but I knew you needed these.”

    “Thank you,” my voice is a whisper. Nothing is more important than the letters in my hand.

    She stands up and looks at me. “You can't leave your room, but there’s always an emergency flashlight in the nightstand. Use it if you want to read your letters now and then hide them.”